Cake (16 page)

My rapist had painted this? Straightening up, I continued to stare at it. Yep, that very same brown-haired vampire, who was at this moment, coming out of the playroom. My hearing must have been enhanced as well as my eyesight, because I actually heard him approaching behind me before his hand even touched me.

“
Don’t pull on my neck,” I said quickly before he could grab around my throat and use it as a handle for pulling me closer to him. His hand stopped in mid-air, shifted down to my chest, and reaching around to my back, he pulled me against his own naked chest.

“
What are you doing out of bed, Sex? You should still be resting.”

He buried his face in my shoulder-length hair and rubbed his cheek against mine. He’d done this before, and now there would be a faint smell of apples around me all day. As a human, I hadn’t picked up this odor as well, but now, it was intensified. I tried to pull away from him and his scent, but nope, I was still weaker than he was.

“
Who is he? What is he to you?” I asked him, gesturing with my bound hands towards the painting.

Lifting his face out of my hair, Marcus reached forward and touched a spot on the wall, and a single spotlight illuminated the darkness. I could really see the detail in the painting now, and Marcus pulled me back a few steps so I was at the right distance to enjoy it.

“
Claudius is the one who made me. He is my Sire. As I am yours,” he explained.

I frowned. “But you’re not his mate?”

“
No, I was made to be a companion, a friend. Just as you are my friend.”

I tried to turn around to face him, but it was just another useless gesture in a long line of useless gestures against him, and when I spoke next, my voice held more bitterness than I thought it was capable of.

“
There is no way you can call us friends. You’ve terrorized me for a year. You’ve taught me nothing but fear and pain. The little I know about you is that you like to bite from the right, and you love to hand-feed me like I’m a dog or some sort of pet. You won’t let me sit on furniture; I have to sit on
you.
Oh yeah, and you love to fuck me when I’m crying. That’s all I’ve learned about you from one full year of your company; that, and the fact that Claudius told me you’re a pale Crimson Flame.”

He arms tightened around me. “You are being cruel.”

I raised my hands up, shaking them so the links locking them together rattled. “This is cruel. Waking up for the first time in this place with blood seeping out of my raped ass because you had to have me—that was cruel. You’ve taken everything I have ever known from me, and in return you’ve given me…this, whatever this is. You have stripped away everything I was. You won’t let me have my own identity. Sex? What kind of name is that? It’s a pet’s name.”

His hold on me tightened, and I had to gasp for breath because it felt like he was crushing my lungs.

“
Is this all there is for me, Marcus? You’ve turned me into some kind of a vampire, but I’m not even right as that. I’m a monster, and I’m still locked in this horror show you dragged me into one year ago. If you can’t let me go, it might be kinder just to kill me.”

Marcus crushed me harder. He was strong. I think he forgot exactly how strong he was most of the time, but since I was the one on the end of it half the time, I remembered. I should be able to use that one day.

Now though, he hugged me back to his body, and it felt like he was trying to merge us into one space. He hunched over my shoulder and whispered into my ear.

“
You are mine. You have always been mine. From the first moment that I saw you, I wanted to protect you. And I will protect you, with my very life if need be. I will be your guide as you learn your new Vampiric powers. I want to be your friend, Sigmund. More than just your friend, I want to be your lover. I want you to give me your heart freely, and I will cherish it like nothing has ever been cherished before.”

I bowed my head. “I’m not answering to Sigmund.”

The death grip lessened. “I do not like Edward.”

“
How about Xavier? It could be my first name, or a last name. I’ve been called it before,” I bartered.

“
Xavier, it is.”

Marcus released me, but caught my shoulder as I listed to one side. I took a few deep breathes, turned, and stared up at him. His face seemed more…expressive, well his eyes were speaking volumes to me now, especially with that hint of burning red around his irises.

I flinched as he raised his hand towards me. He saw this, and his lips narrowed into a thin line as he swept my hair back behind one ear and ran his fingers down the shell to my lobe. Lightly pressing on it, feeling the canal where it was pierced, he let go of me and pulled out a stud from his own ear.

“
Xavier, I would ask that you wear this, even though you are not ready to become my mate—this is a sign that you might consider it one day.” He held a single ruby stud between his fingers.

I eyed the gleaming red earring. “Like a promise ring?”

“
Would you wear it, if I say that it was more of a friendship gesture?”

“
But is it, really?”

“
It is what you make it out to be, Xavier,” Markus anwered. “I will abide by your decision. You are a vampire now. You are my equal. I wish you no harm. I never did wish you hurt or injury. I just wanted you, Little One.”

I contemplated it for all of three seconds. “Put it in.”

Marcus’s face broke out into a true, beaming smile. I say true, because even his eyes lit up. I blinked at him. I had never seen someone’s eyes smile before, ever. Just agreeing to this one little thing had made him so happy.

He worked his fingers at the small loop currently hanging off my left ear. I’d had the piercing done on a whim with my sister, Shayne, a few years back. It was more of an “I got your back/don’t be a wimp” kind of gesture. She’d been so pissed when her ears had gotten infected, and she had to let the holes close up. I had no such problems with mine at all…much to Marcus’s delight.

He leaned down and kissed me, and I turned my head away from him. I wasn’t ready for any more of that. As I’d moved, the muscles in my neck gave me a kick of pain, and I groaned.

“
Are you injured?” he asked, his voice concerned.

“
No, just stiff,” I admitted. “I thought I would be in more pain when I woke up, but I must have healed while I was sleeping.”

Marcus brought his hand up, and cupping my cheek, he turned my head to one side, looking at what should have been a bruised mess from where Claudius had been sitting on my face. His thumb swept along my jaw line, stroking gently.

“
I…assisted the healing process. I did not want you to be in any more agony than necessary. Your first Flame was more intense than either Claudius or I anticipated.”

I stiffened and blinked. Surely he didn’t mean what I thought he meant, did he?

“
It was nothing,” he insisted.

Holy crap, he did! I thought back to my experimental twitch of my gluts in the bathroom. I should have been hurting, big time, but I wasn’t because…he’d healed my wounds with his tongue.

“
Uh…Thank you,” I said, not entirely sure that they were the words I wanted to say.

“
Come back to bed. I just want to hold you,” Marcus pleaded.

“
Will it happen again?” I asked, lowering my head and staring down at the carpeted floor. It seemed like the concrete bunker was warmer now in atmosphere as well as in temperature. I didn’t seem to be shivering as much.

“
The Flame will happen again, but it should be at a normal intensity. I could not have handled an eighty Flame as well as you did when I was a fledgling. I was proud that you were able to bind me in the shower without knowing how to do it. You used two bindings, a vocal and a physical. It took me decades to combine the two, yet you learned instinctively in less than two hours. Can you imagine what it will be like when you have control of your gifts, Sex…I mean Xavier. You will be a most formidable vampire. After your next Flame and burn period, we should be safe enough to take those cuffs off, if you can handle it just as well as the last time.”

I frowned. “You mean, sex?”

“
Yes.”

“
With you?”

“
Hopefully. Or with Claudius, if he is willing.”

I really didn’t see Claudius turning down an offered piece of ass. He struck me as a deviant of the ninth order. I snorted, and my voice grew quiet. “Marcus, will I turn into a whore again?”

“
Probably,” he admitted, kissing my forehead.

“
Can’t sugarcoat the truth, eh?” I said into his chest.

Marcus was a big, big man compared to me, and he rested his chin easily on top of my head. “I have never lied to you, Xavier. I think you are beautiful when you are aroused. Now that you are of the Blood, you will be even more so. I will be beating Bloods off you with a stick. Revel in your desires, you shouldn’t fear them.”

That was all fine and dandy for Marcus to say, only these weren’t my desires—they were his. While he’d been training my mind to fear him and obey him, he’d also trained my body to accept him. These feelings of lust weren’t mine. Those sensations of gratification weren’t mine. They couldn’t be. I didn’t want them, because I wasn’t gay. I didn’t want to feel pleasure from having his cock up my ass. I didn’t want to crave the taste of him in my mouth, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be the instigator of our coupling.

“
Sleep with me, Xavier. Sleep in my arms tonight. Let me protect you.” Marcus wrapped his arms around my chest and pressed his lips to my temple. “Can you allow me that? Please, give me this time.”

“
What happens tomorrow?”

“
Tomorrow will take care of itself.”

I pushed at his arms. “See what you’re doing? I’m just your pet, a step away from being your mindless fuck toy.” He just crushed me back against him, lifting me up until my feet were barely touching the floor.

For fuck’s sake.

“
Language, Xavier.” I tried not to shiver as he pressed his lips to the shell of my ear. “I have to go before the High Council to answer charges of keeping a human for a year. Since you are now birthed, there should be no repercussions, hopefully. I will confer with Claudius whether we should inform the High Council that you are a Blue Blood. I personally think we should wait until you have control of your full Vampiric gifts before announcing this.”

He dropped me back to my feet and leaned over me, pressing his forehead to mine. “I have a feeling that you are going to be more powerful than Claudius and I put together when you are a little older. I also have a feeling that you will need that power. Some faction went to a lot of trouble to wipe out the Royal Blue line in the past, and I do not think they would like to see it resurrected.”

I stilled. “I’m in danger?”

“
They will have to come through me to get to you,” he growled.

It was a statement of fact. A bone-chilling statement of fact. When he said he would die for me, he’d meant it. I could feel his resolve in that one statement. I looked up into his chocolate eyes and felt myself getting lost in the warmth offered to me there.

“
Let me hold you, my Little…Xavier, while the world still lets me.”

“
You can use Sex as an endearment, Marcus,” I told him softly. “And you can hold me too, but I don’t want sex. I can’t handle it. What did Claudius say? I’m fragile right now. Just don’t push me, okay?”

“
I told you that I would abide by your decision. When you Flame, just reach for me and I will take care of you.”

“
I don’t want to Flame.” My voice was barely above a whisper.

“
It will never again be as bad as the first time. This I can promise.” Marcus kissed my temple and rubbed the side of his face in my hair. “So, may I hold you?”